You are here

Case Studies

Education

Since 1994, the ACLU has been a champion of students’ rights to an adequate education in Baltimore City. Its Education Reform project has been instrumental in advocating for increased statewide funding for Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) through the Bridge for Excellence legislation... Read More

Despite the growing number of afterschool options in Baltimore, there are very few scholastic after-school activities that offer the benefits of encouraging teamwork, leadership, and problem solving, while buttressing in-school academic performance. The Abell Foundation has invested in building a... Read More

Data collection and analysis are critical sources of knowledge and support for large school districts and their boards. Research departments within school systems, however, are tasked with responding to local and state compliance mandates rather than addressing critical longer term policy issues... Read More

The percentage of Baltimore City public high school graduates enrolling in college has been declining, and now hovers at 44 percent. In addition, fewer students are choosing four-year colleges, and 75 percent of those who do enroll in college require remedial coursework. Generally, only 30 percent... Read More

The National Academic League (NAL) is a competitive scholastic extracurricular program designed to increase middle school achievement, and sponsored by the Abell Foundation since 1993. Nearly 600 sixth-through eighth grade students on 28 Baltimore City public school teams compete bi-weekly in an... Read More

According to studies from the National Research Council, third-grade reading scores can be used to predict the likelihood of high school completion with reasonable accuracy; in fact, students reading below grade level in elementary school are four times less likely to graduate high school than... Read More

Reading Partners is a national nonprofit that recruits, trains, and supports community volunteers to increase the amount of time and personnel available during the school day to deliver data-driven, one-on-one tutoring to students in kindergarten through fifth grade. With Abell Foundation start-up... Read More

Highlighted in the Public Justice Center’s advocacy for homeless youth in Baltimore was the need for both residential and educational components to serve adolescent males experiencing housing instability. According to Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) officials, the annual number of... Read More

Research, most notably the work of Johns Hopkins researcher Karl Alexander (2001), has identified summer vacation as the culprit in widening the achievement gap in reading between low-income children and their wealthier peers. Termed “summer slide,” low-income children lose, on average, three... Read More

Research consistently demonstrates that high-quality teaching is the most important factor impacting student learning; furthermore, teacher and principal quality accounts for 60 percent of the impact on student achievement. Despite the growth of alternative teacher certification pipelines, teacher... Read More